The situation:
This program was launched when we were in the Darien Rio Congo area, working on solving the health issues caused by the lack of suitable water supply in the short term (medical tour and water filters), while planning and arranging better permanent water systems for the long term for the Emberá-Wounaan communities. We found out that they have frequent health complications and high incidence of preventable disabilities among their little ones.
There are 5 communities in the area we are working with: In the Monte Rico community there are 31 Emberá homes, with a couple and 2-5 children each. Some houses host 2 families. Most of them sleep on the floor. In Caña Blanca there are 21 Wounaan homes subdivided in a similar way, in La Reserva there are 16 homes and in Arizona 26. In Barriales, with mixed population ethnicities, we find 126 indigenous peoples between Emberá and Wounaans.
In all of the villages we have found cases of disability such as blindness, congenital diseases, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, hydrocephalus, neurological disorders, etc and some of them are in quite a precarious situation, suffering malnourishment and in crucial need of urgent medical care and regular therapy. Most of these problems are most likely caused by the lack of adequate pregnancy controls, by giving birth in their remote jungle areas with frequent infections due to poor sanitary conditions/water quality, with no access to immediate emergency services in case of complications, nor available transport to go to the nearest health center when needed, etc.
We also noticed there are many families with more kids than they can afford to provide for, making life a struggle for their subsistence farming and/or fishing economies. It seems apparent that reproductive education and access to affordable and suitable contraception methods is an essential step for these families to be able to lift themselves out of poverty.
We are currently working on tracking all the pregnancies and disability cases in the area, in order to fully understand the causes and prioritize the intervention correctly, but some of the villages are very difficult to reach during the rainy season so getting all the information together is taking time. For now, we are focusing in Monte Rico, Barriales and Caña Blanca, the areas which are more accessible with bad weather. Dry season is coming soon and we will be able to reach the furthest settlements of La Reserva and Arizona then.
During a few of our visits to the area between May and July, we have been providing powdered milk and other staple food items to some of those disabled children and their families, clothes, diapers, toiletries... we have given parents a ride to governmental offices and help them fill the applications for disability allowances, donated 5 beds with Tribal Gathering latex mattresses to Monte Rico and for Caña Blanca 1 bed with a regular mattress and 4 of the TG latex mattresses.
Simultaneously, we had 2 women from Caña Blanca with risky pregnancies who were giving birth and who required our support: On June 30th Claudia delivered a premature boy by emergency c-section in the local town health center. Given that the baby was starved of oxygen and presented a worrisome lung infection and congestion when he was born, he had to stay in an intensive care incubator for almost a month on antibiotics and intubated until he was able to breath and eat independently.
While we were in the middle of this, we received a call from another lady from the same village, Elena, who was coming to the city on July 5th, pregnant almost overdue and wanted to avoid similar issues as those Claudia had just gone through, specially bearing in mind her high risk pregnancy with twins. Fortunately, she delivered 2 healthy boys in the children´s hospital on the 14th of July with no complications.
Our awesome coordinator for all our indigenous programs in the Darien, Aisen Valdés, kindly welcomed both couples in her family home in Panama city for the duration of their stay. With funds provided by GeoParadise and a handful of other generous donors, plus some latex mattresses from Tribal Gathering taken to her home to fit her 6 new guests (2 couples and 2 kids), she lovingly cared for these families, fed them, accompanied them to several hospital and clinical lab visits, helped them with communications in Spanish (as is not their mother tongue) with doctors and nurses, got them baby clothes, diapers, baby items, baby baskets and play-cribs.
She also made the arrangements to make sure that Claudia´s hospital fees were 99% exonerated, due to the extreme poverty background. She drove Elena and her family back home on GeoParadise rental vehicle and she liaised with the office of the Member of Parlament for the Darien Province, to provide the return transport on the 7th of August for Claudia when her baby was finally stable, safe and sound, a month and 1 week after his birth.
Please Support Us On Our Mission:
Our goal is to help more women, and also whole families in the Darién indigenous Emberá & Wounaan communities and others, to get familiar with importance of family planning, reproductive education, proper maternal care and to enable them to gain education, medical aid, regular checkups and support during and after pregnancy. We are raising funds for their transport to the doctors, food and accommodation while in the town/city attending their medical appointments, as well as medicines, therapies, first aid supplies, baby care products, nutritious food, access to education and government grants, etc.
We are set to delivery more beds and 15 more of our TG latex mattresses in the next trip end of November, as well as more clothes, diapers and food to reach more of the affected children. We will also offer to bring back to the city 2 of the most severe cases who need urgent care, proper evaluation, diagnosis and treatment plan. But there is still a looong way to go and we cannot do it alone. We need your support!
Our goal is to regularly raise up to USD $800-1000 per month to establish an emergency fund to help the more vulnerable families and their children with disabilities.
Please, contribute to this important cause what you can, or if you are not able to donate at this point, you may share the campaign with your social networks! Every little bit helps and spreading the word is a crucial part to get them the support they desperately need.
Who We Are:
GeoParadise is a 501(c)3 Public Charity based in the U.S. that has been working with native communities throughout the world since 2011. Achieving goals in cultural preservation, education, sustainable agriculture, and other social issues. Each year GeoParadise invites over 60 ancestral indigenous communities from across the globe to come to share with each other and the western world during its main annual cultural exchange "Tribal Gathering".
A huge thanks to all our loyal global family, who has been supporting us in our efforts to secure better living conditions for the indigenous peoples of Latin America over this and the past year... We couldn't do it without your help!
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